Here’s a White Rose Relevant speech in the House of Representatives, from April 16th of this year, by Representative Ron Paul of Texas. Apologies if it’s already been flagged up here, but I don’t believe it has. Paul is not the kind of man who gets to decide the law, but his opinions still count for something.
First two paragraphs:
Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Patient Privacy Act. This bill repeals the misnamed Medical Privacy regulation, which went into effect on April 14 and actually destroys individual medical privacy. The Patient Privacy Act also repeals those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 authorizing the establishment of a “standard unique health care identifier” for all Americans, as well as prohibiting the use of federal funds to develop or implement a database containing personal health information. Both of these threats to medical freedom grew out of the Clinton-era craze to nationalize health care as much as politically possible.
Establishment of a uniform medical identifier would allow federal bureaucrats to track every citizen’s medical history from cradle to grave. Furthermore, as explained in more detail below, it is possible that every medical professional, hospital, and Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) in the country would be able to access an individual citizen’s records simply by entering an identifier into a health care database.
